Live from the Diamond, July 10-27, 17-day B2B around Japan and Korea

[Ken the cruiser]

We have arrived at Toby-Mie, the anchor has been dropped, and they are lowering the tender boats now. Just for picture reference when looking at the below ship location map, these were taken on the starboard side. 😁

  

 

 

 
This was the only one taken on the port side.

 

 
Let the tendering games begin! 😂

 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Ken the cruiser

[vlin07]

 

 

The way Toba folks welcome us this morning.😊

[Ombud]

Thanks @vlin07. I was hoping to be able to roll my own sushi so I'd know exactly what's in it

[Ken the cruiser]

Today’s excursion definitely included a walk in nature! 

  

  

Tendering went pretty smoothly this morning as we were only 30 minutes late getting on our tour bus. When we finally got down to board the tender, we could see they had two gangways open, one for PCL tours and one for everyone else.

 

 

 
We were on the bus by 11 am headed to our first stop Ise-jingu Shrine Complex.

 

 
When we got there it was over 90 degrees, so we walked the kilometer, mostly in the shade when possible, to get back to the shrine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
When finally made it all the way back to the shrine and walked up the stairs. Unfortunately, we were informed no photos were allowed to be taken once inside the shrine area. But to be honest, there really wasn’t that much to take a picture of once inside. So we did our 1 minute walk around inside and then headed back towards the bus, as we only had 50 minutes in total at the site. 
 

I have to say there were some big trees in the Complex!

 

 

 

 

 

 
Once we got back to the bus, it was time for about a 30 minute drive to the hotel for lunch.

 

 

 

 

This view was from the 4th floor of the Daiwa Royal Hotel where we had lunch, which was quite tasty I might add,

 

 
Then it was time to head to the Yokohama Observatory. As you can see driving through the countryside on our excursion was very scenic.

 

 

When we got to the Observatory parking lot, we transferred to a smaller bus to take us to the top. Then it was time to do more walking! 😂

  

 

 

 

 

 

 
Since we only had 40 minutes there, we basically walked up to the Observatory, took some pictures and walked back down to catch the smaller bus back down the mountain to where our tour bus was. Then we were off Ago Bay for a cruise on a Spanish “pirate ship” and enjoy about a 30 minute cruise looking at a bunch of oyster beds, to include getting a brief explanation on how the oysters were brought to the surface by women divers and how they extracted the pearls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The traps the oysters were kept in while underwater creating the pearls.

 

 

Then it was time to head back to the pier to catch the last shuttle to the ship.

 

 

 

It was definitely an enjoyable excursion, but a little toasty for all the walking and climbing stairs we had to do. 😁

[Ken the cruiser]

And we’re off! Next stop Yokohama, Japan, which will be a transition day for us.

 

 

  
And which is also looking like another toasty day in the Yokohama/Tokyo area! 😱

 

 
Here’s the excursion we’ll be doing on transition day that PCL started offering a couple of days ago.

 

[Ken the cruiser]

And finally after dinner tonight, we finished off the day by going to watch the production show, I Got The Music, in the main theater

 

 

 
followed by an hilarious game show called Hollywood Hiccups! in the Explorers Lounge, where the Entertainment team did a variety of skits where the audience had to guess the movie.

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, Ombud said:

Thanks @vlin07. I was hoping to be able to roll my own sushi so I'd know exactly what's in it

I’m glad @vlin07 was able to answer your question as we would up getting back in time to eat in the Santa Fe RCDR. 

[ringers0815]

Thank you for sharing your trip with us. It brings back many memories from our Princess cruise in March. We visited the shrine in March with a Princess excursion. It’s a beautiful place but lots of walking. The weather was nice in March, sunny and not too warm, perfect for walking! 
 

We visited Kamakura on our own and it’s a beautiful place. We saw the big Buddha and a few other shrines and temples including a bamboo forest. I am certain you will enjoy your visit!

[hozelovr123]

Did you ever get the opportunity to schedule an arrival time? Not off to a good start…I’m on the Diamond 19th (today) to the 27th. Was never able to pick an arrival group. It kept saying it was too far in the future. I checked this morning, and now I can’t because it says the ship has sailed. 😂😢
Any suggestions on what time I should head to the ship? 
 

how has the cruise been so far? Any ideas on how many people are going to be on this sailing? I would love to hear just a quick summary of how your first week went. I started roll call for this week, but literally nobody joined. 

[Ken the cruiser]

We have arrived in Yokohama!

 

 

 

 

The information we received about what to expect on transition day.

 

 

 
Although the speed test wasn’t that great, we have had no problems accessing multi-layered websites like CC as well as downloading data and uploading pictures this morning.

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Ken the cruiser

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, hozelovr123 said:

Did you ever get the opportunity to schedule an arrival time? Not off to a good start…I’m on the Diamond 19th (today) to the 27th. Was never able to pick an arrival group. It kept saying it was too far in the future. I checked this morning, and now I can’t because it says the ship has sailed. 😂😢
Any suggestions on what time I should head to the ship? 
 

how has the cruise been so far? Any ideas on how many people are going to be on this sailing? I would love to hear just a quick summary of how your first week went. I started roll call for this week, but literally nobody joined. 

No, we were never able to schedule an arrival time. But I believe I read somewhere PCL has stopped doing that. We took the PCL shuttle bus from the hotel and got to the terminal and checked in around noon if I recall. They were definitely not checking for a scheduled arrival time. But check out my post #87 on page 4, to find where the checkin station is for Reserve Collection and higher suite guests is if you’re in one of those cabins. I tried to describe our experiences when embarkation day.

But the bottom line is you’ll be well taken care of once you get to the terminal. 😁

[vlin07]

1 hour ago, hozelovr123 said:

Did you ever get the opportunity to schedule an arrival time? Not off to a good start…I’m on the Diamond 19th (today) to the 27th. Was never able to pick an arrival group. It kept saying it was too far in the future. I checked this morning, and now I can’t because it says the ship has sailed. 😂😢
Any suggestions on what time I should head to the ship? 
 

how has the cruise been so far? Any ideas on how many people are going to be on this sailing? I would love to hear just a quick summary of how your first week went. I started roll call for this week, but literally nobody joined. 

We arrived at osanbashi terminal around 11am jul 10. The general check-in is FIFO, so first come first serve. We got a ticket with a group number on it. Then we  waited until our group # was called to start check in process. Around 12 pm, we were already on deck 14 to enjoy lunch.😊

[vlin07]

A suggestion based on my experience of this trip:

the wifi on this ship was slow. We also bought Japan data-only SIM cards. They are cheap and speed is great. My nieces even used them to download movies on their iPhones and watched them in staterooms. when we were at port or on land, we switched from princess wifi to SIM cards. And every time when the ship left port, we still could enjoy high speed internet from the SIM cards for a couple more hours until the ship was too far from land.

[Ombud]

@Ken the cruiser & @vlin07 I'm getting off in Yokohama and hope to take a later day train to the airport. It any of you venture into the city, is Yokohama worth seeing? How far away is the train station??

[Ken the cruiser]

8 minutes ago, Ombud said:

@Ken the cruiser & @vlin07 I'm getting off in Yokohama and hope to take a later day train to the airport. It any of you venture into the city, is Yokohama worth seeing? How far away is the train station??

We’ll be on the PCL tour bus on the tour mentioned above, so I won’t be of much help answering your questions. 

[cr8tiv1]

There is a train station (Queen's Plaza/Yokohama Intercontinental) if the ship docks in Yokohama City.  Not sure what you would do with your luggage.  There is another train station near the Sheraton Yokohama.  Don't know which train would take you to the airport.  Also, there is a bus station nearby that will also take you to the airport.  

 

In the dark of night, we took a bus from Narita to Yokohama, dropped off and walked to the other side of the building to catch a taxi to the hotel that was blocks away.  It was late and dark.

[Ombud]

@Ken the cruiser sorry. I'm not sure how I missed that but caught that you were B2B

 

I've booked the disembark tour but I've already done that and was looking for something a little different 

 

@cr8tiv1 perfect!! Just need to find a luggage locker (will have 1 carryon) and figure out if out up to it 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Ombud

[vlin07]

2 minutes ago, Ombud said:

@Ken the cruiser & @vlin07 I'm getting off in Yokohama and hope to take a later day train to the airport. It any of you venture into the city, is Yokohama worth seeing? How far away is the train station??

There is a beautiful shopping area called Marine & Walk yokohama , a 10 mins walk or 4 mins taxi ride from cruise terminal😊

 

 

[cr8tiv1]

Yokohama has Yamashita Gardens, Ramen Museum, Cup of Noodles Museum, ChinaTown, a small zoo and lots of shopping centers (huge).  Plenty to fill your partial day.  I guess you could ask a hotel if they would hold your luggage.

[hozelovr123]

5 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

No, we were never able to schedule an arrival time. But I believe I read somewhere PCL has stopped doing that. We took the PCL shuttle bus from the hotel and got to the terminal and checked in around noon if I recall. They were definitely not checking for a scheduled arrival time. But check out my post #87 on page 4, to find where the checkin station is for Reserve Collection and higher suite guests is if you’re in one of those cabins. I tried to describe our experiences when embarkation day.

But the bottom line is you’ll be well taken care of once you get to the terminal. 😁

So the beverage package includes “the juice bar”…but does the Diamond Princess have one? Thanks…..

[MJC]

Am loving your trip report as Japan is on our radar for 2025. Could you tell me how will we know when a 2025 cruise will be available to book? We have never planned that far in advance before. TY.

[Ken the cruiser]

17 hours ago, Ombud said:

Thanks @vlin07. I was hoping to be able to roll my own sushi so I'd know exactly what's in it

Look what we found when we went for lunch up in the buffet today after getting back from our excursion! 😁

 

[Ken the cruiser]

Also found out today, once we got back from the excursion, that our outstanding debt from our first leg was automatically rolled over into the second leg’s account, where our MOBC, SOBC and PCL promotional OBC for the second leg was waiting to pounce on it. Yay! 😁
 

We were originally told last cruise by a GS officer that because we had separate booking numbers for each leg, our account would be zeroed out at the end of the first leg and any debt owed would be charged to our CC. That was on the case on this B2B.

[Ken the cruiser]

2 hours ago, hozelovr123 said:

So the beverage package includes “the juice bar”…but does the Diamond Princess have one? Thanks…..

Yes. It’s on Deck 14 midship and it’s open from 7 am to 2 pm.

[Ken the cruiser]

2 hours ago, MJC said:

Am loving your trip report as Japan is on our radar for 2025. Could you tell me how will we know when a 2025 cruise will be available to book? We have never planned that far in advance before. TY

One way is to go to the Princess website at https://www.princess.com/. Then select Japan in the Destination option. Currently, this is what appears when you then select the Month/Year option. When the 2025 dates start showing up, you can start getting excited. You can also monitor the CC Princess forum as some TAs like @Coral post advance information about various upcoming itineraries a week or two before they are posted to the Princess website.